The Reading Room

Thank you to everyone who entered our Launch Giveaway. We'd like to congratulate Jared Marquez on his win of a brand-new Rancilio Silvia V3 home espresso machine. Since it's not everyday that you get a chance to win an espresso...

Every other week, we'll be highlighting one of our featured roasters on the blog. Check back to get to know the roasters behind that cup of coffee you're drinking! In Chicago, the scene is heating up with roasters and cafes. A...

EDIT: This giveaway has ended and the winner has been announced. Thanks to everyone who participated and shared!   In celebration of our launch, we are giving away the highly valued Rancilio Silvia V3 home espresso machine to our fans!...

We're excited to announce a new coffee column with The Manual, an online lifestyle guide for men that touches on style, living, food & drink, travel, and grooming! The coffee column, called "Unfiltered," is our owner's view on making coffee...

As we mentioned in a previous post, the Big Central Regional Barista and Brewer's Cup Competition took place in Minneapolis over the weekend. The Big Central is comprised of the North Central and South Central regions. For each region, there...

Yesterday was the beginning of a regional barista and brewer's competition weekend in Minneapolis. At first thought, many customers don't realize that coffee has competitions. Their next question is often, "So what do they do? Make coffee?" Yes. If you...

1. Remember Portola's wafflegato? Last time I wrote that variations on that theme were expected. Indeed, there have been two so far. See below for the recipes.- a. Featuring organic goat's milk caramel, salted caramel gelato, and aleppo pepper seasoning...

I really enjoy trying new coffees because I can justify using all the coffee tools that occupy my kitchen. So today I'll be writing about my efforts with AJ Coffee Co's Fazenda Rodomunho Natural Brasil. I don't think I've had...

I had a rather busy yet unproductive weekend. I drove around with the family getting a few errands done in San Francisco, and took a few longer drives to go out to a few places to eat. All of that...

Saturday is my favorite day of the week because it is the beginning of the weekend and usually I have the most time during this day. It is even better this saturday as I was stocked with Roaste's coffee. Because...

So I'm just starting on my bag of AJ Coffee Co's Fazenda Rodomunho Natural  Brasil and was really in the mood to do some experimenting in the espresso realm tonight. At three days post roast it is still a little...

This is an update about the condition of the Olympia Cremina 67 that I recently acquired through ebay.  I had disassemble and clean its grouphead as well as descaling last week because the espresso I produced from it is much less...

Beehouse is a Japanese company that is perhaps best known for their ergonomic ceramic teapots. They also make ceramic coffee drippers, in a small and a large size. The drippers are wedge shaped and have two small holes in the...

A few days ago, I hit up a big order from Espresso Vivace Rosteria on two of their well know and well reviewed blend from Roaste and was very excited for its delivery. The order was placed on the 14th...

When brewing espresso there is one critical element to the puzzle, and it is grinding it fresh to a nice grainy powder. To do that obviously you need to have a grinder in your home, the problem being most grinders...

Natural coffees can be funky, as can Sumatras. So one might expect a naturally-processed Sumatra to be particuarly funky. It might be, but the one I have from PT's is remarkably clean. PT's tasting notes are rather involved, as if...

The Ebay Cremina that I received a few weeks was in excellent condition cosmetically yet it proved to be quite a challange to pull good shots with it. It did not matter how much I vary coffee type used, the...

So you want to make excellent espresso, how about taking a trip to Italy?                                                        ...

So here on the east coast the heat index is in the upper nineties and even though I'm sitting at home in an air conditioned environment I really wanted something iced tonight. I came across this post on HB this...

So, someone asked me a while back to post my current Aeropress method, and I’m just now getting around to it. This is the method that I use to make my coffee in the morning. There are some (marginally) better...

Would you pay more than $500 for a pound of coffee? Someone did yesterday in an online auction of Guatemalan coffees that included six micro-lots of coffee estimated to be among the best coffees in the world. On Tuesday, Finca...